One-third of English immigrants and two-thirds of Pakistanis want to change Scottish culture, preferring to add to the variety of Scottish customs and traditions rather than attempt to ‘adapt and ...
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One-third of English immigrants and two-thirds of Pakistanis want to change Scottish culture, preferring to add to the variety of Scottish customs and traditions rather than attempt to ‘adapt and blend’. Scottish Pakistanis value diversity, wanting a Scotland that is different from its past and different from their own past. They reject a ghetto mentality in favour of a multicultural society, in which they would be integrated but not assimilated. Pakistanis who lack friends outside their community, speak Asian languages at home, read Asian papers, or do not have occupations outside the home or the family business have a particular concern about special ethnic history classes for their children. Few English immigrants want special history classes, but those who have spent longer time in Scotland or have greater links to Scotland and weaker continuing links to England are more inclined to advocate ‘adapting and blending’. There is also behavioural evidence that English immigrants are willing even to adapt their religion.Less

History, Culture, Symbols

Asifa HussainWilliam Miller

Published in print: 2006-07-20

One-third of English immigrants and two-thirds of Pakistanis want to change Scottish culture, preferring to add to the variety of Scottish customs and traditions rather than attempt to ‘adapt and blend’. Scottish Pakistanis value diversity, wanting a Scotland that is different from its past and different from their own past. They reject a ghetto mentality in favour of a multicultural society, in which they would be integrated but not assimilated. Pakistanis who lack friends outside their community, speak Asian languages at home, read Asian papers, or do not have occupations outside the home or the family business have a particular concern about special ethnic history classes for their children. Few English immigrants want special history classes, but those who have spent longer time in Scotland or have greater links to Scotland and weaker continuing links to England are more inclined to advocate ‘adapting and blending’. There is also behavioural evidence that English immigrants are willing even to adapt their religion.

American society has been long plagued by cycles of racial violence, most dramatically in the 1960s when hundreds of ghetto uprisings erupted across American cities. Though the larger, underlying ...
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American society has been long plagued by cycles of racial violence, most dramatically in the 1960s when hundreds of ghetto uprisings erupted across American cities. Though the larger, underlying causes of contentious race relations have remained the same, the lethality, intensity, and outcomes of these urban rebellions have varied widely. What accounts for these differences? And what lessons can be learned that might reduce the destructive effects of riots and move race relations forward? This detailed study is the first attempt to compare six major race riots that occurred in the three largest American urban areas during the course of the twentieth century: in Chicago in 1919 and 1968; in New York in 1935/1943 and 1964; and in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992. The book weaves together detailed narratives of each riot, placing them in their changing historical contexts and showing how urban space, political regimes, and economic conditions—not simply an abstract “race conflict”—have structured the nature and extent of urban rebellions. The book draws upon archival research, primary sources, case studies, and personal observations to reconstruct events—especially for the 1964 Harlem-Bedford Stuyvesant uprising and Chicago's 1968 riots where no documented studies are available. By focusing on the similarities and differences in each city, identifying the unique and persisting issues, and evaluating the ways political leaders, law enforcement, and the local political culture have either defused or exacerbated urban violence, this book points the way toward alleviating long-standing ethnic and racial tensions.Less

Race, Space, and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles

Janet L. Abu-Lughod

Published in print: 2007-09-10

American society has been long plagued by cycles of racial violence, most dramatically in the 1960s when hundreds of ghetto uprisings erupted across American cities. Though the larger, underlying causes of contentious race relations have remained the same, the lethality, intensity, and outcomes of these urban rebellions have varied widely. What accounts for these differences? And what lessons can be learned that might reduce the destructive effects of riots and move race relations forward? This detailed study is the first attempt to compare six major race riots that occurred in the three largest American urban areas during the course of the twentieth century: in Chicago in 1919 and 1968; in New York in 1935/1943 and 1964; and in Los Angeles in 1965 and 1992. The book weaves together detailed narratives of each riot, placing them in their changing historical contexts and showing how urban space, political regimes, and economic conditions—not simply an abstract “race conflict”—have structured the nature and extent of urban rebellions. The book draws upon archival research, primary sources, case studies, and personal observations to reconstruct events—especially for the 1964 Harlem-Bedford Stuyvesant uprising and Chicago's 1968 riots where no documented studies are available. By focusing on the similarities and differences in each city, identifying the unique and persisting issues, and evaluating the ways political leaders, law enforcement, and the local political culture have either defused or exacerbated urban violence, this book points the way toward alleviating long-standing ethnic and racial tensions.

This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the ...
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This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the clandestine Sabbath afternoon gatherings). These archives, which represent the most systematic attempt to record Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, were dedicated to finding the best way to record the uprooting of communities, and the suffering and destruction of Polish Jewry. Ringelblum and his colleagues in the Warsaw ghetto were able to amass a considerable amount of information. By secretly recording Jewish life in Poland during the German occupation, and continuing the Jewish tradition of witnessing, the Warsaw ghetto chroniclers, both individually and collectively, performed important acts of resistance. They believed that what they were experiencing would one day be studied as historically important, and this awareness shaped their writing.Less

Writing as Resistance? Bearing Witness in the Warsaw Ghetto

Zoe Vania Waxman

Published in print: 2008-06-26

This chapter examines the work of Emmanuel Ringelblum, a trained social historian and teacher, who initiated the Warsaw-based secret archives of Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight: a code-name for the clandestine Sabbath afternoon gatherings). These archives, which represent the most systematic attempt to record Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, were dedicated to finding the best way to record the uprooting of communities, and the suffering and destruction of Polish Jewry. Ringelblum and his colleagues in the Warsaw ghetto were able to amass a considerable amount of information. By secretly recording Jewish life in Poland during the German occupation, and continuing the Jewish tradition of witnessing, the Warsaw ghetto chroniclers, both individually and collectively, performed important acts of resistance. They believed that what they were experiencing would one day be studied as historically important, and this awareness shaped their writing.

Almost half a century has now elapsed since the 1960s when African American neighborhoods in more than 300 cities experienced civil disorders or ghetto uprisings. The book looks in detail at six ...
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Almost half a century has now elapsed since the 1960s when African American neighborhoods in more than 300 cities experienced civil disorders or ghetto uprisings. The book looks in detail at six major race-related riots/revolts, which represent distinctive types and took place within different spatially organized patterns of segregation. If space is one key to understanding such changes, time is of course the second. No city's experiences are independent of larger historical trends, even though they may be played out in ways that are relatively unique to place. This chapter reviews the temporal cycles of population movements and interracial relations, chiefly as they have affected coexistence and conflict in three cities—Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.Less

An Overview of Race Riots in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles

Janet L. Abu-Lughod

Published in print: 2007-09-10

Almost half a century has now elapsed since the 1960s when African American neighborhoods in more than 300 cities experienced civil disorders or ghetto uprisings. The book looks in detail at six major race-related riots/revolts, which represent distinctive types and took place within different spatially organized patterns of segregation. If space is one key to understanding such changes, time is of course the second. No city's experiences are independent of larger historical trends, even though they may be played out in ways that are relatively unique to place. This chapter reviews the temporal cycles of population movements and interracial relations, chiefly as they have affected coexistence and conflict in three cities—Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.

One might use the military phrase “low-intensity war” to describe the interim period between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s in Chicago, during which there were forays and retreats but few confrontations ...
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One might use the military phrase “low-intensity war” to describe the interim period between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s in Chicago, during which there were forays and retreats but few confrontations involving great violence. On the West Side, the very poor Second Ghetto was absorbing into its ancient housing stock and its newer public housing projects minorities who could not afford the better housing and more organized community on the South Side. It was chiefly on the West Side that low-intensity warfare would be transformed into open hostilities after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April 1968. The signs of dissent were already apparent in the years before that massive response. While reactions of despair and anger triggered demonstrations in virtually all areas of Chicago where blacks lived, only in the West Side Second Ghetto did events spin out of control in arson and looting.Less

The Black Uprising after King's Assassination in 1968

Janet L. Abu-Lughod

Published in print: 2007-09-10

One might use the military phrase “low-intensity war” to describe the interim period between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s in Chicago, during which there were forays and retreats but few confrontations involving great violence. On the West Side, the very poor Second Ghetto was absorbing into its ancient housing stock and its newer public housing projects minorities who could not afford the better housing and more organized community on the South Side. It was chiefly on the West Side that low-intensity warfare would be transformed into open hostilities after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., in April 1968. The signs of dissent were already apparent in the years before that massive response. While reactions of despair and anger triggered demonstrations in virtually all areas of Chicago where blacks lived, only in the West Side Second Ghetto did events spin out of control in arson and looting.

Racial tensions have been recurring phenomena deeply embedded in New York City's past, as they have been in American history in general. Among others, there were significant protests in Harlem in ...
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Racial tensions have been recurring phenomena deeply embedded in New York City's past, as they have been in American history in general. Among others, there were significant protests in Harlem in 1935 and again in 1943 that prefigured the types of ghetto revolts that would come to be characteristic in other cities in the late 1960s. These culminated in the 1964 Harlem riot that spread almost instantaneously to the city's “Second Ghetto” in Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant. The immediate casus belli of the 1935 Harlem riot was when a sixteen-year-old boy was apprehended and accused of stealing a penknife from Kress's variety store on the busy commercial thoroughfare of 125th Street in Harlem. The immediate casus belli of the 1943 Harlem revolt was an altercation between a white policeman and a female black client at a local hotel.Less

The Harlem Revolts of 1935 and 1943

Janet L. Abu-Lughod

Published in print: 2007-09-10

Racial tensions have been recurring phenomena deeply embedded in New York City's past, as they have been in American history in general. Among others, there were significant protests in Harlem in 1935 and again in 1943 that prefigured the types of ghetto revolts that would come to be characteristic in other cities in the late 1960s. These culminated in the 1964 Harlem riot that spread almost instantaneously to the city's “Second Ghetto” in Brooklyn, Bedford-Stuyvesant. The immediate casus belli of the 1935 Harlem riot was when a sixteen-year-old boy was apprehended and accused of stealing a penknife from Kress's variety store on the busy commercial thoroughfare of 125th Street in Harlem. The immediate casus belli of the 1943 Harlem revolt was an altercation between a white policeman and a female black client at a local hotel.

Marguerite Duras's “Les Deux Ghettos” employs an aesthetic of juxtaposition: taking the form of two interconnected interviews, it brings together memory of the Holocaust and recent developments in ...
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Marguerite Duras's “Les Deux Ghettos” employs an aesthetic of juxtaposition: taking the form of two interconnected interviews, it brings together memory of the Holocaust and recent developments in the ongoing struggle between France and the Algerian independence movement, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). Duras's article approaches the massacre in roundabout fashion, through a historical analogy between Nazi policy and the context of Fifth Republic France. His article might be said to illustrate one of the central arguments of Jeffrey Alexander's chapter. Sometime around 1961, the Nazi genocide of European Jews went from being perceived as a terrible wartime atrocity with limited implications to being an event uniquely suited to illuminating historical evil wherever it cropped up. Thus, Alexander would most likely see in “Les Deux Ghettos” an exemplification of moral universality.Less

Multidirectional Memory and the Universalization of the Holocaust

Michael Rothberg

Published in print: 2009-07-27

Marguerite Duras's “Les Deux Ghettos” employs an aesthetic of juxtaposition: taking the form of two interconnected interviews, it brings together memory of the Holocaust and recent developments in the ongoing struggle between France and the Algerian independence movement, the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). Duras's article approaches the massacre in roundabout fashion, through a historical analogy between Nazi policy and the context of Fifth Republic France. His article might be said to illustrate one of the central arguments of Jeffrey Alexander's chapter. Sometime around 1961, the Nazi genocide of European Jews went from being perceived as a terrible wartime atrocity with limited implications to being an event uniquely suited to illuminating historical evil wherever it cropped up. Thus, Alexander would most likely see in “Les Deux Ghettos” an exemplification of moral universality.

This chapter examines the residential contexts of immigrant families, which also affect the starting point for the second generation. Fears that immigrants and their children will end up living in ...
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This chapter examines the residential contexts of immigrant families, which also affect the starting point for the second generation. Fears that immigrants and their children will end up living in “parallel societies” like the black ghettoes of American cities are vastly overblown. Nevertheless, neighborhoods of immigrant concentration, at least for low-status groups, may create marked disadvantages. The chapter assesses the actual extent, and consequences, of residential segregation, and looks at the role of public policies in shaping these patterns. Neighborhoods are often the places where immigrant minorities and native majorities have initial contacts and thus where the impacts of immigration on the mainstream society are particularly salient. The chapter then considers the emergence of “super-diverse” neighborhoods.Less

Living Situations : How Segregated? How Unequal?

Richard AlbaNancy Foner

Published in print: 2015-04-27

This chapter examines the residential contexts of immigrant families, which also affect the starting point for the second generation. Fears that immigrants and their children will end up living in “parallel societies” like the black ghettoes of American cities are vastly overblown. Nevertheless, neighborhoods of immigrant concentration, at least for low-status groups, may create marked disadvantages. The chapter assesses the actual extent, and consequences, of residential segregation, and looks at the role of public policies in shaping these patterns. Neighborhoods are often the places where immigrant minorities and native majorities have initial contacts and thus where the impacts of immigration on the mainstream society are particularly salient. The chapter then considers the emergence of “super-diverse” neighborhoods.

This chapter reviews the history of the city of Rome in relation to malaria, starting with the sack of Rome by the Gauls c.386 BC. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a detailed study of the ...
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This chapter reviews the history of the city of Rome in relation to malaria, starting with the sack of Rome by the Gauls c.386 BC. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a detailed study of the topography of the city of Rome. The hills of Rome were much healthier than the intervening valleys and the areas adjoining the river Tiber (since mosquitoes rarely fly up hills) as described by Doni, who wrote a pioneering work on the medical geography of the area around Rome in the 17th century. The reasons for the absence of malaria from the Jewish Ghetto of Rome are discussed. The phenomenon in Rome of mixed infections of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium malariae also receives attention. Important ancient evidence for malaria in the city of Rome provided by Asclepiades of Bithynia and Galen, and mediaeval accounts of malaria epidemics in Rome, are discussed.Less

The city of Rome

Robert Sallares

Published in print: 2002-09-05

This chapter reviews the history of the city of Rome in relation to malaria, starting with the sack of Rome by the Gauls c.386 BC. Emphasis is placed on the importance of a detailed study of the topography of the city of Rome. The hills of Rome were much healthier than the intervening valleys and the areas adjoining the river Tiber (since mosquitoes rarely fly up hills) as described by Doni, who wrote a pioneering work on the medical geography of the area around Rome in the 17th century. The reasons for the absence of malaria from the Jewish Ghetto of Rome are discussed. The phenomenon in Rome of mixed infections of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium malariae also receives attention. Important ancient evidence for malaria in the city of Rome provided by Asclepiades of Bithynia and Galen, and mediaeval accounts of malaria epidemics in Rome, are discussed.

Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors have come forward only recently to tell their stories, Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the ...
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Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors have come forward only recently to tell their stories, Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos and concentration camps, to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. It shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably through time. By relating testimony to the contexts in which witnesses testified, it reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' responses, and the extent to which their identities – secular or religious, male or female, East- or West-European – affected not only what they observed, but also how they have written about their experiences. In particular, what survivors remember is substantially determined by the context in which they are remembering.Less

Writing the Holocaust : Identity, Testimony, Representation

Zoë Vania Waxman

Published in print: 2008-06-26

Arguing against the prevailing view that Holocaust survivors have come forward only recently to tell their stories, Writing the Holocaust examines the full history of Holocaust testimony, from the first chroniclers confined to Nazi-enforced ghettos and concentration camps, to today's survivors writing as part of collective memory. It shows how the conditions and motivations for bearing witness changed immeasurably through time. By relating testimony to the contexts in which witnesses testified, it reveals the multiplicity of Holocaust experiences, the historically contingent nature of victims' responses, and the extent to which their identities – secular or religious, male or female, East- or West-European – affected not only what they observed, but also how they have written about their experiences. In particular, what survivors remember is substantially determined by the context in which they are remembering.

Conversos choosing to settle in Italy faced the risk of being branded as heretics, for there were inquisitions in papal Rome as well as in Venice, an attractive commercial port for the Portuguese ...
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Conversos choosing to settle in Italy faced the risk of being branded as heretics, for there were inquisitions in papal Rome as well as in Venice, an attractive commercial port for the Portuguese merchant. Each locale had its own ruler who could choose whether or not to invite and protect the newcomers; some, like Leghorn, even extended invitations (La Livornina) and granted them charters. The conversos also had to decide whether they wanted to become Jews and to live in Jewish neighborhoods or ghettos, to remain Catholics, to live as "cultural commuters," or as "fuzzy Jews." Eminent conversos such as Dona Gracia and Amatus Lusitanus can be found here alongside lesser known dissemblers and undecided conversos whose fates were determined in Italy.Less

Italy

Renee Levine Melammed

Published in print: 2004-10-28

Conversos choosing to settle in Italy faced the risk of being branded as heretics, for there were inquisitions in papal Rome as well as in Venice, an attractive commercial port for the Portuguese merchant. Each locale had its own ruler who could choose whether or not to invite and protect the newcomers; some, like Leghorn, even extended invitations (La Livornina) and granted them charters. The conversos also had to decide whether they wanted to become Jews and to live in Jewish neighborhoods or ghettos, to remain Catholics, to live as "cultural commuters," or as "fuzzy Jews." Eminent conversos such as Dona Gracia and Amatus Lusitanus can be found here alongside lesser known dissemblers and undecided conversos whose fates were determined in Italy.

Based on nearly six years of fieldwork in and around high poverty secondary schools on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, this book uses the tools of the teacher-ethnographer to take on questions ...
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Based on nearly six years of fieldwork in and around high poverty secondary schools on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, this book uses the tools of the teacher-ethnographer to take on questions touching us all: Even if they “know better,” why do so many adolescents frequently get caught up in the situated destruction of non-selective big city schools? Although putatively of the same race as many of the other students wrecking their educational environments, how do some male students self-identifying as black avoid the seductions of “street” ways of being and, in extremely rare cases, develop capacities for emotional self-control and concentration great enough to allow them to use their “failing ghetto schools” as launching pads into elite colleges? Inside their classrooms, why is it so difficult if not impossible for most teachers to consistently reproduce the triumphs of a handful of their colleagues rather than contribute, more or less forcefully, to their own “burn outs”? As the vignettes and biographical case studies woven into the empirical chapters reveal, adequate answers to these questions require that we move away from romanticized notions about resistance, disembodied fantasies about explicit cultural interpretations preceding real time actions, and essentialist assumptions about (the perpetual salience of) blackness and other seemingly discrete ethno-racial categories. Developing a fundamentally new way of thinking about everday dealing and self-destruction in fiercely segregated, physically unsafe, and emotionally toxic schools can help us avoid more pseudo-interventions and finally get serious about reforming the educational experiences of the poorly born.Less

Toxic Schools : High-Poverty Education in New York and Amsterdam

Bowen Paulle

Published in print: 2013-10-04

Based on nearly six years of fieldwork in and around high poverty secondary schools on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, this book uses the tools of the teacher-ethnographer to take on questions touching us all: Even if they “know better,” why do so many adolescents frequently get caught up in the situated destruction of non-selective big city schools? Although putatively of the same race as many of the other students wrecking their educational environments, how do some male students self-identifying as black avoid the seductions of “street” ways of being and, in extremely rare cases, develop capacities for emotional self-control and concentration great enough to allow them to use their “failing ghetto schools” as launching pads into elite colleges? Inside their classrooms, why is it so difficult if not impossible for most teachers to consistently reproduce the triumphs of a handful of their colleagues rather than contribute, more or less forcefully, to their own “burn outs”? As the vignettes and biographical case studies woven into the empirical chapters reveal, adequate answers to these questions require that we move away from romanticized notions about resistance, disembodied fantasies about explicit cultural interpretations preceding real time actions, and essentialist assumptions about (the perpetual salience of) blackness and other seemingly discrete ethno-racial categories. Developing a fundamentally new way of thinking about everday dealing and self-destruction in fiercely segregated, physically unsafe, and emotionally toxic schools can help us avoid more pseudo-interventions and finally get serious about reforming the educational experiences of the poorly born.

This project began in the summer of 1997, when the author was studying Yiddish at the Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish. His major assignment was to research and write a paper on the Jewish history ...
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This project began in the summer of 1997, when the author was studying Yiddish at the Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish. His major assignment was to research and write a paper on the Jewish history in Vilnius, however, his discovery of people how had participated in the Minsk underground ghetto paved the way for the emergence of this book, which centers on the Minsk ghetto resistance. The book is based on the accounts of the survivors of the Holocaust. To eliminate questions of accuracy and truthfulness, the author checked different people's accounts of the same events against each other. The author also referred to the memoirs available at the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, the Yad Archives, and the KGB Archives. The author also refers to other important documents such as the memoirs of Anna Krasnopyorko, a Minsk ghetto survivor; At Crossroads of Fate, a collection of memoirs of ghetto survivors and Byelorussians who aided Jews; and Children of the Minsk Ghetto by Grigori Rozinsky. Other sources that were instrumental include three official Soviet documents and unpublished accounts of the Minsk ghetto.Less

Introduction

Barbara Epstein

Published in print: 2008-07-28

This project began in the summer of 1997, when the author was studying Yiddish at the Vilnius Summer Program in Yiddish. His major assignment was to research and write a paper on the Jewish history in Vilnius, however, his discovery of people how had participated in the Minsk underground ghetto paved the way for the emergence of this book, which centers on the Minsk ghetto resistance. The book is based on the accounts of the survivors of the Holocaust. To eliminate questions of accuracy and truthfulness, the author checked different people's accounts of the same events against each other. The author also referred to the memoirs available at the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, the Yad Archives, and the KGB Archives. The author also refers to other important documents such as the memoirs of Anna Krasnopyorko, a Minsk ghetto survivor; At Crossroads of Fate, a collection of memoirs of ghetto survivors and Byelorussians who aided Jews; and Children of the Minsk Ghetto by Grigori Rozinsky. Other sources that were instrumental include three official Soviet documents and unpublished accounts of the Minsk ghetto.

The Warsaw ghetto uprising and strategy of internal revolt has been the golden standard of the Holocaust resistance. In much of the literature that delved into the Holocaust period, internal ...
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The Warsaw ghetto uprising and strategy of internal revolt has been the golden standard of the Holocaust resistance. In much of the literature that delved into the Holocaust period, internal strategies by the ghettos formed the focus and core of these studies, leaving the story of the Minsk ghetto near oblivion. While experts are fully aware of the existence of an alternative strategy, the focus on the internal ghetto revolt was so overwhelmed that the memory of the Holocaust has come to mean internal ghetto revolts. This book has attempted to restore to memory the model of Holocaust resistance exemplified and carried out by the Minsk ghetto underground. The forest/partisan model of resistance was predicated on the view that Jews and non-Jews had a common interest in fighting Nazis, and it involved fostering such alliances. This form of resistance was not possible everywhere, but the fact that it was possible on a large scale in Minsk casts a different light on the Holocaust than do the accounts of the isolated Jews. This effort to bring the Minsk ghetto model of resistance back into memory raises two questions. First, why has the history of Holocaust resistance been so inclined toward the Warsaw ghetto model? Second, what difference does it make to include the alternative represented by the Minsk ghetto? Every political current within the ghetto resistance movements regarded armed struggle as far more important than saving lives. Of the many Byelorussian and Jewish women who worked to save lives, only a few took part in writing their memories and most gave sparse attention to the accounts of forest resistance. This gave the impression that saving human lives was important on a moral level yet, at the political level, it was their contributions to armed struggle that counted. At the beginning of the war, this attitude was understandable but as the war wore on, if it had not been for the view of Zionists, Communists, and others, saving the lives of the Jews trapped in ghettos might have been the higher priority.Less

Conclusion

Barbara Epstein

Published in print: 2008-07-28

The Warsaw ghetto uprising and strategy of internal revolt has been the golden standard of the Holocaust resistance. In much of the literature that delved into the Holocaust period, internal strategies by the ghettos formed the focus and core of these studies, leaving the story of the Minsk ghetto near oblivion. While experts are fully aware of the existence of an alternative strategy, the focus on the internal ghetto revolt was so overwhelmed that the memory of the Holocaust has come to mean internal ghetto revolts. This book has attempted to restore to memory the model of Holocaust resistance exemplified and carried out by the Minsk ghetto underground. The forest/partisan model of resistance was predicated on the view that Jews and non-Jews had a common interest in fighting Nazis, and it involved fostering such alliances. This form of resistance was not possible everywhere, but the fact that it was possible on a large scale in Minsk casts a different light on the Holocaust than do the accounts of the isolated Jews. This effort to bring the Minsk ghetto model of resistance back into memory raises two questions. First, why has the history of Holocaust resistance been so inclined toward the Warsaw ghetto model? Second, what difference does it make to include the alternative represented by the Minsk ghetto? Every political current within the ghetto resistance movements regarded armed struggle as far more important than saving lives. Of the many Byelorussian and Jewish women who worked to save lives, only a few took part in writing their memories and most gave sparse attention to the accounts of forest resistance. This gave the impression that saving human lives was important on a moral level yet, at the political level, it was their contributions to armed struggle that counted. At the beginning of the war, this attitude was understandable but as the war wore on, if it had not been for the view of Zionists, Communists, and others, saving the lives of the Jews trapped in ghettos might have been the higher priority.

Drawing from engrossing survivors' accounts, many never before published, this book recounts a heroic yet little-known chapter in Holocaust history. The book chronicles the history of a Communist-led ...
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Drawing from engrossing survivors' accounts, many never before published, this book recounts a heroic yet little-known chapter in Holocaust history. The book chronicles the history of a Communist-led resistance movement inside the Minsk ghetto, which, through its links to its Belarussian counterpart outside the ghetto and with help from others, enabled thousands of ghetto Jews to flee to the surrounding forests where they joined partisan units fighting the Germans. Telling a story that stands in stark contrast to what transpired across much of Eastern Europe, where Jews found few reliable allies in the face of the Nazi threat, this book captures the texture of life inside and outside the Minsk ghetto, evoking the harsh conditions, the life-threatening situations, and the friendships that helped many escape almost certain death. The book also explores how and why this resistance movement, unlike better known movements at places like Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno, was able to rely on collaboration with those outside ghetto walls. It finds that an internationalist ethos fostered by two decades of Soviet rule, in addition to other factors, made this extraordinary story possible.Less

Barbara Epstein

Published in print: 2008-07-28

Drawing from engrossing survivors' accounts, many never before published, this book recounts a heroic yet little-known chapter in Holocaust history. The book chronicles the history of a Communist-led resistance movement inside the Minsk ghetto, which, through its links to its Belarussian counterpart outside the ghetto and with help from others, enabled thousands of ghetto Jews to flee to the surrounding forests where they joined partisan units fighting the Germans. Telling a story that stands in stark contrast to what transpired across much of Eastern Europe, where Jews found few reliable allies in the face of the Nazi threat, this book captures the texture of life inside and outside the Minsk ghetto, evoking the harsh conditions, the life-threatening situations, and the friendships that helped many escape almost certain death. The book also explores how and why this resistance movement, unlike better known movements at places like Warsaw, Vilna, and Kovno, was able to rely on collaboration with those outside ghetto walls. It finds that an internationalist ethos fostered by two decades of Soviet rule, in addition to other factors, made this extraordinary story possible.

Focusing on the choices and actions of Jews during the Holocaust, this book examines the different patterns of behavior of civilians targeted by mass violence. Relying on rich archival material and ...
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Focusing on the choices and actions of Jews during the Holocaust, this book examines the different patterns of behavior of civilians targeted by mass violence. Relying on rich archival material and hundreds of survivors' testimonies, the author presents a new framework for understanding the survival strategies in which Jews engaged: cooperation and collaboration, coping and compliance, evasion, and resistance. The book compares Jews' behavior in three Jewish ghettos—Minsk, Kraków, and Białystok—and shows that Jews' responses to Nazi genocide varied based on their experiences with prewar policies that either promoted or discouraged their integration into non-Jewish society. The book demonstrates that while possible survival strategies were the same for everyone, individuals' choices varied across and within communities. In more cohesive and robust Jewish communities, coping—confronting the danger and trying to survive without leaving—was more organized and successful, while collaboration with the Nazis and attempts to escape the ghetto were minimal. In more heterogeneous Jewish communities, collaboration with the Nazis was more pervasive, while coping was disorganized. In localities with a history of peaceful interethnic relations, evasion was more widespread than in places where interethnic relations were hostile. State repression before World War II, to which local communities were subject, determined the viability of anti-Nazi Jewish resistance. Exploring the critical influences shaping the decisions made by Jews in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe, the book sheds new light on the dynamics of collective violence and genocide.Less

Ordinary Jews : Choice and Survival during the Holocaust

Evgeny Finkel

Published in print: 2017-03-07

Focusing on the choices and actions of Jews during the Holocaust, this book examines the different patterns of behavior of civilians targeted by mass violence. Relying on rich archival material and hundreds of survivors' testimonies, the author presents a new framework for understanding the survival strategies in which Jews engaged: cooperation and collaboration, coping and compliance, evasion, and resistance. The book compares Jews' behavior in three Jewish ghettos—Minsk, Kraków, and Białystok—and shows that Jews' responses to Nazi genocide varied based on their experiences with prewar policies that either promoted or discouraged their integration into non-Jewish society. The book demonstrates that while possible survival strategies were the same for everyone, individuals' choices varied across and within communities. In more cohesive and robust Jewish communities, coping—confronting the danger and trying to survive without leaving—was more organized and successful, while collaboration with the Nazis and attempts to escape the ghetto were minimal. In more heterogeneous Jewish communities, collaboration with the Nazis was more pervasive, while coping was disorganized. In localities with a history of peaceful interethnic relations, evasion was more widespread than in places where interethnic relations were hostile. State repression before World War II, to which local communities were subject, determined the viability of anti-Nazi Jewish resistance. Exploring the critical influences shaping the decisions made by Jews in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe, the book sheds new light on the dynamics of collective violence and genocide.

This book represents a new approach to the study of punishment by explaining the causes and consequences of the prison boom from the perspective of the rural, southern towns most directly affected by ...
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This book represents a new approach to the study of punishment by explaining the causes and consequences of the prison boom from the perspective of the rural, southern towns most directly affected by prison building. Prison placement is often oversimplified as a dubious choice for rural community leaders: a way to secure jobs that may stigmatize their communities. By relocating from Chicago, Illinois to Forrest City, Arkansas I uncovered the challenges facing a community that pursued and secured a prison facility. Some rural leaders see attracting a prison as a way to achieve order in a changing world that seems to be beyond their control. This manuscript shows how collective memory and a shared sense of community are also vital in differentiating the instrumental purposes of a prison (jobs) from its symbolism. In Forrest City, racial violence and stigma marred the collective memory of towns leaders and shared meaning of community. Given the legacy of shame associated with prisons, the need to overcome stigma plays an important role in building a prison. Rural towns want to build prisons not simply for economic wellbeing, but also to protect and improve their reputations by managing ghetto stigma. Prison demand is nuanced, multifaceted, and depends on context. By unraveling why leaders in Forrest City secured placement of the Forrest City Federal Correctional Facility, we can begin to understand the social, political, and economic shifts that drove to United States—“the land of the free”—to triple prison construction in just over thirty years.Less

Big House on the Prairie : Rise of the Rural Ghetto and Prison Proliferation

John M. Eason

Published in print: 2017-03-06

This book represents a new approach to the study of punishment by explaining the causes and consequences of the prison boom from the perspective of the rural, southern towns most directly affected by prison building. Prison placement is often oversimplified as a dubious choice for rural community leaders: a way to secure jobs that may stigmatize their communities. By relocating from Chicago, Illinois to Forrest City, Arkansas I uncovered the challenges facing a community that pursued and secured a prison facility. Some rural leaders see attracting a prison as a way to achieve order in a changing world that seems to be beyond their control. This manuscript shows how collective memory and a shared sense of community are also vital in differentiating the instrumental purposes of a prison (jobs) from its symbolism. In Forrest City, racial violence and stigma marred the collective memory of towns leaders and shared meaning of community. Given the legacy of shame associated with prisons, the need to overcome stigma plays an important role in building a prison. Rural towns want to build prisons not simply for economic wellbeing, but also to protect and improve their reputations by managing ghetto stigma. Prison demand is nuanced, multifaceted, and depends on context. By unraveling why leaders in Forrest City secured placement of the Forrest City Federal Correctional Facility, we can begin to understand the social, political, and economic shifts that drove to United States—“the land of the free”—to triple prison construction in just over thirty years.

This chapter traces the migration of Bollywood from the ‘ghetto’ market of the Indian descent population in South Africa to the ‘crossover’ market of mainstream cinemas, the national television ...
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This chapter traces the migration of Bollywood from the ‘ghetto’ market of the Indian descent population in South Africa to the ‘crossover’ market of mainstream cinemas, the national television broadcaster, and pay-TV. Drawing on Rajadhyaksha's idea of Bollywood as a media assemblage, it sheds light on a number of activities attesting to Bollywood's presence in South Africa, such as the use of South Asian locations, influence of the Bollywood style of filmmaking on South-African filmmakers of Indian origin, and India-South Africa collaborations in film production.Less

From Ghetto to Mainstream : Bollywood inland South Africa

HASEENAH EBRAHIM

Published in print: 2012-02-01

This chapter traces the migration of Bollywood from the ‘ghetto’ market of the Indian descent population in South Africa to the ‘crossover’ market of mainstream cinemas, the national television broadcaster, and pay-TV. Drawing on Rajadhyaksha's idea of Bollywood as a media assemblage, it sheds light on a number of activities attesting to Bollywood's presence in South Africa, such as the use of South Asian locations, influence of the Bollywood style of filmmaking on South-African filmmakers of Indian origin, and India-South Africa collaborations in film production.

This chapter discusses the formation of Minsk ghettos following the invasion of the German army. On June 22, 1941, Germans attacked the Soviet Union. Many fled Minsk including the Minsk Byelorussian ...
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This chapter discusses the formation of Minsk ghettos following the invasion of the German army. On June 22, 1941, Germans attacked the Soviet Union. Many fled Minsk including the Minsk Byelorussian Communist Party. However, many people including Jews and Communists who would become the main targets of the Germans remained in Minsk past the time when it was possible to leave because their family members were at their workplaces and their children were at camps. Of the people that tried to escape, many of them were forced back to Minsk as they were driven back by German soldiers. The impending hostility of the Germans to the Jews was not yet discovered in the year and nine months preceding the German invasion because negative information about the Nazi regime was screened out of the news that reached Soviet populations. Plus, German hostility was further conflicted by the long-standing view that German culture was particularly enlightened in regard to Jews. No one understood that Jews would be special targets and no one anticipated the level of violence that was to take place. The first sign of the German's hostility toward Jews came several weeks after the invasion. Men aging fifteen to forty-five were asked to report to public squares. Tens of thousands of men marched to the village of Drozdy where the Germans set up primitive camps. The Germans separated Jews from Byelorussians who were eventually released. The Jews who were detained were separated further by their occupations. Those who were professionals were murdered, while those who were not were eventually made to occupy the ghettos which were under the control and guard of Germans. Inside the ghettos, underground movements were formed, starvation was prevalent, and escapes were carried out. In the following months and years after the German invasion, pogroms were conducted, killing thousands of Jews in the ghettos.Less

The Minsk Ghetto

Barbara Epstein

Published in print: 2008-07-28

This chapter discusses the formation of Minsk ghettos following the invasion of the German army. On June 22, 1941, Germans attacked the Soviet Union. Many fled Minsk including the Minsk Byelorussian Communist Party. However, many people including Jews and Communists who would become the main targets of the Germans remained in Minsk past the time when it was possible to leave because their family members were at their workplaces and their children were at camps. Of the people that tried to escape, many of them were forced back to Minsk as they were driven back by German soldiers. The impending hostility of the Germans to the Jews was not yet discovered in the year and nine months preceding the German invasion because negative information about the Nazi regime was screened out of the news that reached Soviet populations. Plus, German hostility was further conflicted by the long-standing view that German culture was particularly enlightened in regard to Jews. No one understood that Jews would be special targets and no one anticipated the level of violence that was to take place. The first sign of the German's hostility toward Jews came several weeks after the invasion. Men aging fifteen to forty-five were asked to report to public squares. Tens of thousands of men marched to the village of Drozdy where the Germans set up primitive camps. The Germans separated Jews from Byelorussians who were eventually released. The Jews who were detained were separated further by their occupations. Those who were professionals were murdered, while those who were not were eventually made to occupy the ghettos which were under the control and guard of Germans. Inside the ghettos, underground movements were formed, starvation was prevalent, and escapes were carried out. In the following months and years after the German invasion, pogroms were conducted, killing thousands of Jews in the ghettos.

This chapter discusses the emergence of underground movements and groups in the ghettos. Within weeks of the establishment of the Minsk ghetto, secret groups were formed in the ghetto, consisting ...
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This chapter discusses the emergence of underground movements and groups in the ghettos. Within weeks of the establishment of the Minsk ghetto, secret groups were formed in the ghetto, consisting mostly of Communists and some non-Communists whom they trusted. While many Communists and Komsomol members never participated in the underground in hopes of surviving the war without coming to the attention of the Germans, by August and September 1941, there were four secret groups in the ghetto. These groups eventually became aware of the existence of other underground groups and established contact with each other. During the same period, a similar process was taking place outside the ghetto. And through the fall of 1941, people hoping to engage in resistance began to reach out to like-minded people within the ghetto, within the Russian district, between the two areas, and between each of these areas and forests around Minsk, where partisans were forming. Sometime in October 1941, a Minsk-wide underground organization was established. After this citywide underground was formed, the formerly autonomous secret groups outside and inside the ghettos became part of the defined hierarchical structure. However, at the same time the Minsk underground retained much of its earlier spontaneous and decentralized character. The members of the secret groups who took the opportunities for sabotage, circulating propaganda, and saving the lives of Jews in the ghettos, initiated many of the projects that were sponsored and promoted by the underground leadership. These efforts involved underground members of various groups as well as non-members such as Byelorussians. This support and direction that the underground leadership provided made underground activity more extensive and effective. However, due to the quick growth of the underground group into a mass movement it became vulnerable to German attention and arrests. These arrests severely affected the Russian district but not the ghetto movement due to their rules of conspiracy. In the wake of the large-scale arrests of leading activists, the rank-and-file underground members played a crucial role in sustaining underground activity outside the ghettos and in maintaining connections between the ghetto and the Russian district.Less

The Ghetto Underground

Barbara Epstein

Published in print: 2008-07-28

This chapter discusses the emergence of underground movements and groups in the ghettos. Within weeks of the establishment of the Minsk ghetto, secret groups were formed in the ghetto, consisting mostly of Communists and some non-Communists whom they trusted. While many Communists and Komsomol members never participated in the underground in hopes of surviving the war without coming to the attention of the Germans, by August and September 1941, there were four secret groups in the ghetto. These groups eventually became aware of the existence of other underground groups and established contact with each other. During the same period, a similar process was taking place outside the ghetto. And through the fall of 1941, people hoping to engage in resistance began to reach out to like-minded people within the ghetto, within the Russian district, between the two areas, and between each of these areas and forests around Minsk, where partisans were forming. Sometime in October 1941, a Minsk-wide underground organization was established. After this citywide underground was formed, the formerly autonomous secret groups outside and inside the ghettos became part of the defined hierarchical structure. However, at the same time the Minsk underground retained much of its earlier spontaneous and decentralized character. The members of the secret groups who took the opportunities for sabotage, circulating propaganda, and saving the lives of Jews in the ghettos, initiated many of the projects that were sponsored and promoted by the underground leadership. These efforts involved underground members of various groups as well as non-members such as Byelorussians. This support and direction that the underground leadership provided made underground activity more extensive and effective. However, due to the quick growth of the underground group into a mass movement it became vulnerable to German attention and arrests. These arrests severely affected the Russian district but not the ghetto movement due to their rules of conspiracy. In the wake of the large-scale arrests of leading activists, the rank-and-file underground members played a crucial role in sustaining underground activity outside the ghettos and in maintaining connections between the ghetto and the Russian district.